Middle of the Sea
by formerlyknownasone
Summary: He was that lonely rock in the middle of the sea. He thought he found another one beside him all along... It turned out only to be a pebble. KBOW oneshot. R


**Yah I decided the closest I could ever get to Oliver is probably through this story… I gave him my birthday! (Artistic License, sorry) You guys never bothered to give him one really… so I took the liberty. Now Oliver and I have something in common. So there hmph. **

**Yes today is my freaking birthday!!!!**

**Hope you guys will enjoy this story, its not a good ending, a bit dark and poetic, but don't worry, I won't let Oliver suffer… that much.**

The raindrops continued to fall heavily on him, and the wind cut onto his face harshly. There was a sudden loud crack of thunder coming from the grey sky, but he didn't care, he just stood on the Quidditch field and let the rain fall in him, his eyes closed. Nothing scared him now. He could feel the raindrops seeping through his robes, slowly, running against his cold, pale skin. It was raining, just like it always did on days like these.

Nothing went right on such times.

There was probably a reason for it though, just like everything else in the world happened for a reason. Oliver just wished he knew what it was. He was drenched, but there he stood in the midst of the storm, the rain pattering so hard on his back it hurt.

Yes, it _hurt_. It stung him, every single drop. The pressure hit him hard against the skin as the blanket of rain water clung onto him, but it felt so good. So_ right_. He felt momentarily relieved by the pain inflicted against his poor body, forgetting all the torment he been through. In a way, it helped in forget… To drown out his troubles.

He tried opening his eyes, but the raindrops were making it hard for to do so. It was slightly acidic, and every time Oliver struggled to open them, he could feel the tingling sensation burning his sclera. Finally he succeeded, but found his struggle ultimately useless, for he could not see anything in the strong thunderstorm. Anything that is, except for the one thing he wanted to avoid.

His vision was a blur, but his glance fell onto a lone figure and formed a sharp image. She was across the field, fifty feet away from him, oblivious to the fact that she was the cause of his misery. His chaser just walked on, her long blond hair plastered onto the side of her face, her robes clinging onto her skin.

Katie saw him, he could sense it, and yet she just brushed past him like he wasn't there. He knew she was pretending not to see him, not to notice him. Part of him felt in pain to see that she was unhappy, but part of him was also glad for seeing her looking so anguished. Was it normal to feel pleased yet tortured? Or was he going insane? He couldn't tell. He has lost his conscious and senses _long ago._

Oliver watched silently as Katie disappeared inside the castle, trying hard not to blink. He should feel better now that she was gone, but he _didn't_. Her sudden appearance only made it harder for the rain to drown out the fact that_ she_ was one who devastated him. The physical pain could no longer substitute his emotions, nor would withhold it any longer. Logic failed him once more, and he lost all his sense of coordination.

It was his birthday today.

He was no longer sixteen, but someone who just mould into a seventeen year old. Yet, he could still sense the presence of that fourteen year old boy in him, the one that was lost, confused and so, so vulnerable. Beneath his skin he was still that childish teen who was disappointed year after year by his birthday presents, and that was why he hated his birthday.

He never did get what he wanted. People insisted on giving him Quidditch-related gifts, nothing more. So every single year, all he ever received was Quidditch. No one ever asked him what he wanted, and no one gave him what he desired.

_Her. _

She wasn't a gift to him, and she never could be. She, like everyone else, presumed he was just the boy who breathed Quidditch, and just sent him mounds of Quidditch equipments. It hurt him deeply, that she didn't care to ask him what he wanted. She was just like everybody else.

The problem is, he didn't _want _her to be just like everybody else.

He was in love with the girl since he met her. He prized her beyond any of his possession, even he himself. She was the reason why he looked forward to anything. She was perfect, smart, everything that he was not. He simply loved her, more than anything, and he loved her more than any seventeen year old could comprehend.

He didn't want to fall in love with her, but he did it anyway. He was against the law of nature. Loving her was _against the law of nature_. But he couldn't help it. He just wasn't able to control his emotions. He just wasn't able to resist the temptation that heaven offered to him, after so many years of loneliness, so he just got gently lured along, until it was too late.

She didn't realize it of course, how could she have? He _himself_ didn't realize it. All he knew was that on her first day in Hogwarts she turned to look at him with her very beautiful green eyes, and flashed him the sweetest smile, and all he did was smiled back. He would do anything to make her smile after that, to protect her from sadness and sorrow. Katie brought him infinite amount of joy, and he was contented to just help her out. She was terribly brave, plucky and so infectious. He liked her presence. He couldn't do without her.

He was a loner by nature. He preferred brooms to company, and enjoyed his solitude a lot. Then she had to radiate onto him like warm sunshine, and he finally felt how it was to feel warmth. He started to crave her company, and missed her whenever she was not around. He didn't want to burrow back into his dark little hole anymore, but bask in the comfort of her presence. He used to be that lonely rock in the sea, so far away from the shore, and he thought that he found another rock beside him.

She wasn't even around him that often, but he found himself constantly thinking of her. It was as if she invaded his territory, occupied his air, and pervaded his space. She became _part_ of him, even as the pretty girl sat in the library and he was at the opposite end of school. Every single thought he had, every scent he breathed, all he could hear, was about her. She was like a phantom that hung around in his head, never leaving him, yet never really there.

It was as if she was one of the tough wood vines that entwined itself around an old tree, circling and wrapping itself all around the branches. It was impossible to uproot, for it was to deeply rooted, and the tree would never be able to escape its clutches. There was no way to cut away the vines, not without the tree as well.

She somehow manage to worm her way right into Oliver's heart, no matter how hard he tried to fight it. And she was there to stay.

He never spent a single birthday without her, and he didn't want to celebrate it _without_ her. _What was the use? _He though bitterly. Without Katie, there would be no meaning in his life, and he would have no purpose to live. He wasn't worth existing, if it weren't for her. He wasn't worth_ living_.

The falling droplets landed onto the hard ground, quickly forming large puddles at his feet. Oliver hadn't moved an inch at all from where he was standing one hour ago; he had lost track of time. His gaze landed on the swirling pools of water, staring at the graceful, circular motions of the water ripples. The water never stood still; it was never calm.

He fought and lost the war of emotions raging inside him; he didn't have the energy left inside him anymore. Oliver was too spent, too tired to deny that he liked Katie. It would take simply too much energy and life in him to try and forget someone like her. She was like a piece of great art—something impossibly beautiful that he will never own.

All these didn't matter. What mattered was that she didn't like him, and it would remain this way forever.

Oliver didn't know how she found out. He never did tell anybody, and he certainly had nobody to tell. Yet, he could feel that something was coming between them, driving them apart. Slowly but surely she was drifting away from him, and Oliver felt the change immediately. Katie never met his eyes directly any longer, and she never laughed in front of him anymore. She seemed tense, afraid and frightened, that was all he could see when she tried to avoid his gaze.

Everything about her suggested a change, a bad one. Katie seemed to have devoted all her time to hiding from him. Her hair was now a curtain for her to shy away and hide from Oliver, and her feet seemed to move extra fast. She startled when he spoke to her, and always darted her eyes as if wanting to escape. She no longer wore any of the ornaments he gave her, nor did she proudly call herself 'Oliver's chaser' anymore. Everything that associated herself with Oliver disappeared just like that, without a trace. It was like she cut Oliver off from her life. It was like he never existed.

He was miserable at this harsh treatment she gave him. He never felt worse then how he felt right then. He was confused, frustrated, lost. He didn't know what went wrong, what did he do, or what he could do to even change the situation. She told him it was nothing, but both knew it was an outright lie. Sometimes he tried to ignore the gnawing at his heart, or the twinge of pain he often felt. He tried, he really tried, but he couldn't do it in the end.

He couldn't figure out went wrong, but mostly, he asked himself a lot of questions. Why did he care so much? Who was she to him, anyway? Why did he even bother to care? What was wrong with him to make him feel so bloody miserable? He was crazy, wasn't he?

And then he realized_—_he didn't just liked her, he_ loved_ her

He tried to convince himself it was just infatuation, a school boy crush that would fade away soon. One day he would look back in time and laugh over it like it was a silly matter. He would forget it in a minute, if only he could get her out of his mind. But deep inside him Oliver knew that this wasn't merely attraction, it was love.

And somehow she knew it too. That was how she gave away what was wrong. Her eyes. Her eyes _betrayed_ her.

Their gaze finally met one day, and her beautiful eyes fixed upon him. There was an expression in it there had had never seen before, not in hers anyway. It was filled with tears, sorrow and sadness, those piercing green eyes. He tried to search for answer he had been wanting to finally, and he saw it there haunting her. Her eyes showed… what was it? Pity? Rejection? Hesitance? All of these? When those eyes of Katie's finally managed to meet his, he finally understood. He felt the answer right away.

_She knew. _

She knew he loved her. And she was sorry.

Oliver saw a sudden flash of light, and a purple bolt of lighting lit up the dark stormy sky, as if to remind him it was still raining. The rain… he tried to use it to wash away the pain, but it wasn't working. The wound strung even more when he acted like it wasn't there.

Sometimes he was sick of pretending. He was sick of pretending that nothing ever happened. It made him tired to be acting like everything was fine, and he was tired of denying the truth.

Most of the time though, he didn't mind pretending the wound wasn't there, and he let the matter run off him like the rain was running of his skin right now. In the rain, he could act like she wasn't just a pebble or sea shell beside him, the big lonely rock in the sea. She was more than a small grain of sand beside him. And he wasn't just a lonely rock…

The rain grew heavier and heavier. Oliver could sense someone looking at him, and he looked up at the Castle. Right at the glass window of the tallest tower, he saw Katie looking out at him, almost hidden behind the long red drapes or curtains.

Their eyes met again. There was the same expression, the gaze that told him the answer he didn't want to know. She was looking right at him, her eyes begging for forgiveness. He could see the faint trace of her lips moving. She was whispering to him.

Happy birthday, she mouthed before disappearing from the glass window.

He turned away.

He was that lonely rock in the middle of the stormy sea, standing solitarily in the middle of the ocean. The waves crashed around him, and there was nothing he could do about it or stop it from happening. He was alone, standing apart from the rest of the world, lost in the deep water. No one cared.

He closed his eyes, trying to enjoy the painful sensation as the raindrops landed. He felt the water soak through his clothes, he felt it gliding off the surface of his skin smoothly. It was cold, and it felt good. Tilting his head up to face the stormy sky, he felt the raindrops clinging onto to his eyelashes, and slowly the bitter tears flow out onto his cheeks. He could taste the salt of his tears.

**Hoped that you guys enjoyed it. Haha today is like, my birthday (15 May) and I decided to generously share it with Oliver. **

**And guess what? The best presents you can give to me(besides Oliver, but you can't afford to buy his copyright) is a ton of review. So go on, review this story and every single one I have. Even the DMHG ones. Trust me, they are good. REVIEW! **


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